To Dream
by Horisont
Summary: Karl has always been strong and sure, but this would shake anyone. Read and find out. Please.


Title: To Dream

Story: One shot - one of my few

AN: Everything will be explained….at the bottom…

Light the color of butter warmed the inside of the little shop. He wanted to rip down the blinds. The flowers surrounding him had been sweet looking and melancholy before, now they just mocked him with color. He wanted to smash the pots. He wanted to scream. He wanted to break something. He wanted to be somewhere else. He wanted to cry. Most of all, he wanted things to be different.

Karl pushed his way out of the florist's door and turned his back on the people and colors that flocked to the cheery place. He couldn't stand it anymore. The bright day and the laughter and smiles. It was all becoming too much. How could he stay here without breaking this stoic facade and crying?

" To hell with it."

His voice was harsh from disuse. Had it really been days since he'd spoken? He had gotten through everything without crying, or speaking, or eating. Somehow he'd made arrangements and given orders without opening his mouth once. He'd heard his men talking the other night about it, awed and concerned at the same time. They thought he was strong. They were beginning to think he was cold. But this horrible pain in his chest was just winding tighter. He wanted to throw something.

Of course, what he wanted didn't really matter. If it had, he wouldn't be here now.

He walked for hours before becoming aware. The streets where nearly deserted this time of day, with dusk falling swiftly and stars dotting the sky. Streetlights were winking on, lighting his path on the cracked sidewalk in warm circles of light that he strayed from. He watched the few people around him distantly, almost jealously, as they hurried home to families and warm homes. Two boys jostled him as they ran past, quickly shouting an apology over their shoulders, but he barely heard. His steps were purposeful but unhurried and he concentrated on the click of his tailored shoes on the sidewalk. If he didn't, his mind would wander and he couldn't let that happen or he might end up _there. _He couldn't go there yet, maybe never again. It would only break him he knew, maybe it would anyway, but he couldn't take that chance. He had this image to maintain didn't he? Wind found it's way into his long coat and chilled him, but he welcomed it. If he were cold enough he would be numbed to everything. If he was numb enough he wouldn't remember anything.

Parks are lovely at night. An almost mystery surrounds the manicured lawns and trimmed hedges that glow and shadow in the moonlight. He thought they looked sad. The fountains were quiet, and their statues lonely in the cold night, standing solitary in the middle of their worlds. He felt very much like them now. For a moment he wondered how he had made his way across the city, but he really didn't care. He had never been here before, but he knew he had to get out. It was too much like that of his memories, and those parks would never open to him again. He knew he should leave, but he kept walking forward on the gravel walkway winding through toward the soccer field.

He'd played soccer once in another lifetime. It had to have been another lifetime, because even through he could still remember the smell of sweat and grass, the taste of cold water and hotdogs, the rush of the adrenaline and screaming of the crowds, _this _wouldn't have happened in that life. That life had been filled with memories of warmth and invincibility. He'd had that invincibility just a little while ago hadn't he? Of course as he'd grown it had become mixed with a great deal of mortality, but he'd always had that feeling of strength. At least until now. That happiness was dead and buried. He almost wanted to be with it. But they needed him here, right? These foolish people who looked up to him and saw in him their idea of military perfection. Well, maybe that was all they'd get. That was all he was now anyway. Everything else had been taken away. He wasn't so blind as to think that he wasn't a person without what he'd lost, but he'd never be the same person. He wanted to be that person again. He wanted to be better than that person. That person wasn't able to stop this.

He wanted a lot right now. And he'd give everything for one thing.

He didn't remember leaving the park, but he remembered entering the gate. The white stone archway was stately and beautiful with ivy lacing its way around it from base to arch. Roses wound on a trellis to either side. In the daytime it was green and white and red in a sweet weave of color that was soothing, like that alone could heal you. He thought it was out of place. What lay beyond that gentle arch was not a garden of glorious degree, not the type of garden he'd loved so once. Here they'd planted the last of his heart. But his heart would never bloom again, not here at least. He wanted it back. It occurred to him he might sound selfish, but he didn't care. He wanted _him_ back.

The stones were placed in precise rows along a small cobbled walk. Even in the day they blended together in his eyes, but he knew exactly where to go. On a small hill there were two of them now, though one was much larger. A small fence had been erected around them where carefully tended grass was kept green and shorn. And from the hill he could see the village give way to the ocean, could almost hear the waves if he listened closely. It was always so quiet here. The crickets and owls were his only companions here, and it seemed it would always be that way now.

He stepped over the low fence onto the cut grass. It just wasn't worth the effort to open the gate. He'd have the gate removed tomorrow morning anyway. It shouldn't be there. He'd never liked gates and borders in life, why should he have them now? Karl lay the flowers he carried onto the smallest stone. And as he knelt on the dew-wet grass he couldn't stop from tracing those delicate etchings again. He'd chosen this himself. It wasn't elaborate like the one beside him, but the simple design was more beautiful to him. Just a heart. Elegantly etched and delicate in nature, much like the one it stood for. His fingers slid down the cool stone to trace the letters carved deep into the surface. No epitaph could have surmised what he felt for this one person, so 'loved' would have to do. Loved by him, and so many more. But the years so starkly staring at him said that this world had only had him for nineteen years.

He remembered every one of those years. From the day that a little bundle of baby was dropped in his lap, to the day he had lost him. He had raised him for eleven years. What he wouldn't give for another nineteen years, for another lifetime. He missed him.

" Thomas." His voice came out anguished. He felt like pleading, but he wouldn't. It wouldn't bring him back again. And he so wanted him back again.

He had expected yelling or anger. He had thought to stand here and scream to the sky, shout for reasons and answers. But when the dam broke, all he could do was cry. So he sat weeping on the cold of the marker that stood above his little brothers grave and wetting the stone with his hot tears.

" You weren't supposed to leave me." He chocked out between sobs.

The flowers were soft under his cheek, the bright petals bruising under his skin, the sweet scent filling his nose with sunshine and wind. He lifted his head slowly to stare up at the sky, gently brushing off damp petals and wet saline. Night had fallen completely now. A clear sky sparkling down at him comfortingly as a cold wind wrapped around him, raising goose bumps on his skin. For a moment he entertained asking Heaven why. But he didn't. Only one would know that answer and he was much to far out of his reach. His thoughts turned inevitably to what had brought him here. Not just the death of his baby brother, but what had caused it, what he had missed all those years. They say hindsight's twenty-twenty.

In his ears he could still hear the phone ringing, and irrationally he told himself not to pick it up. It wouldn't have changed anything, but for just this second he let the thought go that if he hadn't picked up that damned phone he wouldn't be gone. He would be of course, and he wished he could change that. Van had found him. In the years that he had known the cheery young man he'd never heard him scream with such pain in his voice. He hadn't even believed it possible for people to truly convey feeling through their voices, but Van had proven him wrong. Maybe that was why he hadn't spoken in almost five days, because then everyone would know just how much this hurt. It was like watching an old movie. The screen in distorted and the colors dull, while the actors are moving around stiffly and speaking, but the sound is too low. He could see Van shouting, but he couldn't hear him. The young captain had been very angry, but not at the people moving about the room trampling the machine parts spread on the floor, but at the still young man lying among them.

He had never shut down before in any situation, never been indecisive or lost. All he could do was stare. The small room was covered in mechanical magazines and parts, clothes surprisingly folded, but then left on a chair. The cream colored walls were spotless, only one or two posters tacked to the plaster. The only thing that looked any different from that morning, when he had briefly stepped in looking for the occupant, was the blood that covered the floor. A small pool of it lay under the slender hands, rivers running from that to the very walls. He wanted to say something. He wanted to tell the men to let go, to not take his brother, but he knew. His brother had taken himself from them. The anger followed the shock, and all he wanted to do was tear the room apart, and any one who got in his way. It was clear in the blood stained sanctum what had happened. The tears wouldn't come, and the anger faded, but the pain just grew. He'd never seen it coming. Never in the times he'd talked with his brother, in all the times he'd called. Though, now, looking back he could see. The fake smiles and dropped hints. The times when he wouldn't smile at all. When he was seventeen Thomas had done an entire paper on it. But he'd still never seen.

There'd been a note. A short ink streaked letter addressed to him. He didn't ask for forgiveness, because he didn't think he deserved it. Karl wasn't sure he could have given it right now. The pain was so excruciating. He'd said he was tired. Being pushed around and brushed off, giving everything he was and getting nothing had taken too much toll. He'd told him he loved him. But he still couldn't understand. Why? What had been that pivotal thing that had driven him to this? He didn't understand, and he didn't he ever would. How could no one have seen?

Karl reached in his pocket and pulled out the worn note. The lettering was beginning to fade around the worked creases in the paper, but he'd already memorized every word said, and everything not said. With one deft flick of his wrist he ripped it in two. Suicide, his little brother had killed himself, and he would never hold him again.

Karl wept on the stone.

Karl shot up in bed with a horrible start. His heart beat wildly in chest as his gaze flew around the room. He could still smell the flower petals on his cheek, the wet ground beneath him, and the harsh stone. But how? The sun was shining onto fresh linen of cream and carpeted floors. Had he fallen asleep? For a heart wrenching second he couldn't remember. The pain and sadness from his dream still weighed heavily on him, squeezing all his breath from his lungs and constricting his heart. Tears still streaked down his cheeks but he barely noticed. He had to know.

" Thomas." His breath came out in name. Whispered and scared.

Still wrapped up in the pain he rushed from his bed and out the door. The door he sought was in front of him in no time at all. He had somehow gotten lucky enough to get a room close to him, but now he almost regretted it. He wasn't sure he wanted to see. But he had to see. He needed to. Karl nearly ripped the door from its hinges in his rush. And for a heartbreaking moment all he could do was stare.

Golden hair fanned around an elfish face, eyes closed peacefully and mouth just barely open. Karl thought his heart would stop. With cautious steps he moved toward the curled form on the bed and reached out a hand. He held his breath as he placed his hand on the slim chest, startled back into life when the boy under him gave a little snort.

Thomas screamed when he was swept from his bed and into crushing arms. Wide eyes blinking he stared up at what he recognized as his big brother in almost alarm.

" Karl?"

Karl held him tighter.

" I'm here Tommy. I'm here."

He hugged back.

AN:

Have you ever had dream so real, or with such an impact, that you woke up feeling the effects? I've woken up crying before. I've also fallen out of bed…but that's another story.. Sorry if this was just a bit dissconected or weird.

This story was a spur of the moment, 'oh my god what the heck am I writing' type of thing. I heard the song " How do you get so lonely?", and then had a reallllllly bad day, and then just started typing. Just so no one gets mad or offended. I have delt with suicide in my life. I've lost someone to it. I wrote an entire paper on it. It does seem to be a rather major theme in fan fictions. It just makes me sad. Don't let it stop you from liking a story, just keep in mind that it's too late when your gone.

Alright, I'll stop babbling. Everyone! Love and Peace.

Horisont, out


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